Northern England: Opportunity and Productivity
Lord Prescott Excerpts(7 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Prescott (Lab)
My Lords, I wish to address my remarks to the northern issue, not necessarily the town or the city. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, on securing this debate on the excellent State of the North report. She said at the beginning that basically decentralisation is what she is concerned about, not devolution, but those two things are two sides of the same coin if we are to find a framework, on a spatial basis, to develop the north—not the tribal basis of each of us talking for Hull, for York or wherever. What contribution and framework do we need to meet the real development of the north? It almost takes me back to when Michael Foot, when he was leader of the Opposition, asked me to find an agreement between the Scots and the English regions after the failure of the first Scotland Bill in Parliament. I talked to them all; they all had the same problem. They were concerned about high unemployment and about growth; they were concerned that growth was really in the south and not the north—very similar arguments in Scotland as in the northern regions. I had to find an agreement about that.
I want to concentrate my remarks on the business of devolution, because it is the same framework. The devolution I mean is what we introduced in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales; we produced an elected government in London—a regional government—and a cities policy, and all this was part of devolution. It found a role for the local government within a framework; that was what was essential for us and we did it. Tragically, this was opposed all the time by the Tories and scrapped when they came in in 2010. Even with RDAs, which everybody thought were successful, they kept development agencies for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but took them away from the English regions and gave us these enterprise boards or something—what do you call them? They do not have the resources or the powers and do not compare to an RDA. To that extent, the Tories took the view that they were more concerned with local than regional government. That is an important difference.
When Osborne came along—whatever his full name is—he gave us “northern devolution”. It is not northern, because it does not cover all the north; it certainly does not cover Hull and anything east of the Pennines. It is not devolution; it is local government reform. I quite welcome that, if that is what we are going to have. It lacks the regional dimension, which is absolutely essential if we are to get the northern economy moving and to recognise the disparities between the north and south. There is a similar argument between Scotland and England as within the English regions themselves.
We have to look at what northern devolution was. I note that all the report on northern devolution dismisses the rhetoric of “powerhouse”—it is certainly not that. However, the report says that devolution is waning, and that it is,
“too partial, piecemeal and parochial”.
That is because the Government have always been against the regional dimension. They always want to see it within the local government framework—so do I. However, strategic thinking needs a strategy.
I am glad to see that the Government now recognise two things. First, Mr Clark, the Secretary of State, is now looking at spatial economic development. We have a Minister who represents every centralised issue in government. The department that matters now is the one for energy and industrial strategy. The Government are right to pursue that, but they do not like to use the talk of regions. That is another difficulty. How do we bring that together?
We need to be talking about the places of growth, and not only in each city or small area but in the region of the north. The north runs from Liverpool to Hull. We need a strategy that shows that as a place of growth. We need to use the Humber—the greatest source of energy we have at the moment. It is an energy estuary; it is environmental and developmental in a fundamental way. It is not just about culture—I leave that on the side—it is about economic development, and that is important. But you need a framework for that. The framework is crucial and we do not have it at the moment.
The argument for Brexit in negotiations was really about redistributing power and resources, not back to the centre but to the regions. Let us see where the money goes. That is a constitutional change—a further balance between the north and the south. I believe we should stay in the European Union but, leaving that aside, if there are negotiations and money is to come back, let it go to the regions. Let us have constitutional change.
Scotland wants more powers for devolution, and probably to stay in, as it has said. I have combined with my colleague Gordon Brown to see if Scotland and the north can form a powerhouse together. If you want a real powerhouse, put Scotland and the north together for the same reason: to redistribute the power and resources and begin to develop a northern economy. Find a framework; it is strategic.
Thank goodness the Government are partly there with Transport for the North, which is now looking for a regional solution, because that cannot be done with local government boundaries. This House will very shortly be debating new powers for Transport for the North which are regional. Let us start looking at the north as a region, not tribally representing Liverpool, Manchester, Hull or wherever. Let us get back to thinking strategically.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, the publication of the IPPR’s annual State of the North report has given us the raw material for a debate on the state of the north, and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, has provided us with the opportunity. I am grateful to her for her opening contribution, particularly her focus on the way that social mobility has changed over generations. I thank her for setting the scene for the debate, and all noble Lords who have contributed. Having sat through the debate for nearly two and a half hours, I have to say that there is very little with which I disagreed. Indeed, as somebody who for 41 years in another place represented constituencies in London and then Hampshire, I felt a growing sense of guilt at the apparent preferential treatment that my constituents had received for such a long time, compared with those in the north. I hope to try to reassure the House that the Government are determined to see a fair distribution of resources.
The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, quoted from the summary of the IPPR report, as did other noble Lords. It is worth quoting one sentence:
“All this, however, presents new opportunities”.
Maximising the full potential of the economy of the north, which has in many ways lagged behind that of London and the south-east, is vital. The noble Lord, Lord Bragg, in a speech that could have come out of “Henry V”, exhorted us to raise our sights and unlock the potential of the north. As the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York said, it is important for those who live and work there that we should do this. I found what he said about the human resilience of those who live in the north very moving. It is in the interests of not just the north but the whole of the UK that we should unlock the potential. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Curry, about the contribution to the balance of payments is well worth making—the fact that there is a major contribution to the balance of payments, which at the moment is in deficit. We should do all we can to unlock that potential.
Noble Lords made many helpful suggestions in the debate about how we can raise our productivity and bring about a sustained rise in wealth, prosperity and opportunity. I hope to respond to as many points as I can in the time available, but where I cannot, I will write to noble Lords and deal with their issues. We have debated this issue a number of times in this Chamber. We had an exchange at Questions on Tuesday. The IPPR report helps us make further progress and I am glad it found favour in the eyes of my noble friend Lord Cavendish, who reminded us of the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises. Along with the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, he made a plea for a reform of governance in Cumbria. I will certainly pass those comments on to the Secretary of State at DCLG. The question of whether Cumbria is going to get the importance it deserves may be answered in the forthcoming by-election up in Copeland, which may focus the minds of all political parties on making sure that that part of the world gets a square deal, but that is beyond my brief.
We are determined to take action to support and strengthen local economies across the north. As noble Lords will be aware, that was an aim pursued with unwavering enthusiasm and dedication by my noble friend Lord O’Neill of Gatley in his work at the Treasury, and I pay tribute to his contribution. In response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Monks, I reassure him that colleagues in government will continue to work to realise my noble friend’s vision for a true northern powerhouse—one with a vibrant, resilient and growing economy; a flourishing private sector; modern and efficient transport links; and a more highly skilled population—and to do so, as we move to leave the European Union, with a negotiated outcome that works for all parts of the United Kingdom and shows the world that we are open for business. I hope to say something later about the very forceful points that were made about a voice for the north. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, reminded us of the importance of the single market and produced a six-point plan, to which he will get a six-point letter in due course.
Reading the IPPR report, I was struck by some of the deeply ingrained challenges that we are trying to overcome; in particular, the productivity gap, which has been the case for decades now and, indeed, was picked out for mention in the Motion before us. Currently, productivity in the north is 13% lower than the UK average and 25% lower than in the south. Clearly, there is a complex range of factors behind that, many of which noble Lords have highlighted previously and did so again today. I will pick up three.
First, connectivity remains a challenge for many people and businesses. To give just one example, congestion on the M62 means that it can take more than two hours to travel the 40 miles between Manchester and Leeds. That is not only frustrating for local people but a barrier to local businesses and the jobs and growth they can bring, and potentially a deterrent to inward investment. I take the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds that connectivity is not just linear. What we need is a spider’s web, rather than a telephone wire, to reach out to the communities that are not directly on the main roads or railway lines. I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, about the stations he would like to see reopened. As a former Secretary of State for Transport, I share that enthusiasm.
Secondly, skills have consistently lagged behind the south at all levels. The north has a higher proportion of people with no qualifications than the UK average and a lower proportion of graduates. I will certainly pursue the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Sawyer, about the role of vice-chancellors in making progress in this area.
Thirdly, it is still more difficult to set up and grow a business in the north compared with the south. Connected to that, we find a lower level of entrepreneurialism in this region, although in saying that I take nothing away from all the dynamic and resilient businesses that exist in the north, some of which were referred to in the debate. We were reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, and others of the history of the great entrepreneurs of the north, particularly those in Bradford.
The IPPR report identifies some excellent examples of successful local economies but, in short, there remain clear areas for improvement, which were highlighted in the debate. The northern powerhouse strategy we published at the Autumn Statement seeks to address these underlying challenges. In saying that, of course I recognise that there are other issues that we need to address—the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, mentioned housing—that are not touched on in the report. We know that lasting changes will not happen overnight, but already we are making substantial progress, as the report acknowledges.
There are signs that our hard work is beginning to pay off. Foreign investors are responding. In 2015-16 the north of England saw inward investment projects increase by nearly a quarter from the previous year, faster than the UK average. In October, the French rail builder Alstom confirmed that it will build a £20 million technology centre in Liverpool, creating up to 600 jobs. In the three months to October 2016, the north saw a record number of people in work—more than 7 million people—and an employment rate of 72.5%, close to its record high. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and others mentioned other successful business that either have been established or are growing.
I shall summarise briefly some of the action that we have been taking to support that success, starting with our work to improve the transport networks that businesses and hard-working commuters rely on every day. We are investing £13 billion in transport in the north over the course of this Parliament. Already we have started to take forward important improvements such as upgrading the A1 in North Yorkshire to motorway standard, upgrading the trans-Pennine rail route to take nearly 10 minutes off journey times between Manchester and Leeds and establishing Transport for the North, to which the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, referred. Last night I was reading his intervention in what I think was one of the first debates of this Parliament when he spoke about his work on the Northern Way. I pay tribute to what he did when he was in government to improve infrastructure in the north.
At the recent Autumn Statement we went further, committing to upgrade the A66 to a dual carriageway across the Pennines and to make major improvements to Manchester’s M60 ring road to ease congestion. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, asked about Cumbria’s coastal railway. The new rail franchise for the northern and trans-Pennine express networks will deliver altogether more than 500 new railway carriages and 2,000 extra services each week. This franchise includes the Cumbrian Coast line to which he referred. Improving connectivity is vital to unleash the north’s economic potential so that the whole can be greater than the sum of its component parts.
As my noble friend Lady Eaton said, better transport links make it easier for people to find jobs, for firms to find workers and for ideas to be shared and developed. That is not just the case domestically within the UK, but in terms of international links as well. In my time as Secretary of State for Transport, one of the things that I took forward was giving the go-ahead to a second runway at Manchester Airport, which is now the UK’s third busiest airport—the busiest outside the south-east.
Skills was a theme that ran through our debate, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Beith, the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and others. We have been working to ensure that people have the right skill sets for their chosen career. We have welcomed the findings of Sir Nick Weller’s report into schools performance in the north and committed £70 million to improve outcomes in northern schools. We continue to explore how we can improve everything from careers advice to high quality apprenticeships and world-class teaching. There is more that I would like to say, but time precludes it. However, to respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, who asked if the Government would consider housing products for the graduate market, in the Northern Powerhouse Strategy we have committed to work with the northern city regions and other local stakeholders to develop innovative proposals for attracting skilled workers. We are funding groundbreaking projects to develop the north’s strengths in science, the arts and sport, including providing £235 million to the Sir Henry Royce Institute for Advanced Materials.
I turn briefly to our responses to the IPPR report. As I have said, a lot of activity is already taking place. The report makes three suggestions as to how we can go further. The Government will work to get the best possible deal for all parts of the United Kingdom as we leave the EU, engaging with businesses up and down the country and continuing to back northern trade. Listening to this debate, I was struck by the number of representations about the potential relative disadvantage of the north in accessing the decision-makers. Without going beyond my brief, that is certainly a point of which my colleagues in government should be aware, given the strength of feeling that has been expressed throughout this debate. That is one of the most important lessons that I have learned.
Our industrial strategy will represent a comprehensive plan for the success of British businesses across all sectors and places, positioning the UK for long-term, sustainable growth as we move towards exiting the EU. A consultation paper will be published shortly.
Lord Prescott
Will the Minister explain the difference between—as pointed out in the report—a place growth strategy and the other critical northern house which tends to get debated? Is it the Humber?
Lord Young of Cookham
I hope the document on industrial strategy to which I have just referred will shed some light on the important issue that the noble Lord has raised. I hope he will excuse me if I move to my final comments. I am conscious that I have not dealt with a whole range of issues about devolution to local government, about local enterprise partnerships, about employment and wages and about those museums—to which I have an answer that will now have to be converted into a letter.
We are determined to keep up our relentless drive further to enable the sustainable economic success of the north. We are taking action on a number of fronts to tackle the deep-seated structural issues that have held back the economic prosperity of the north for too long. There is more to do. To continue our progress, we will keep working hand in hand with those who know best: local businesses, authorities and other organisations. Together, we can keep seizing the opportunities for growth that benefit not only businesses and individuals in the north, but the UK economy as a whole.
Deregulation Bill
Lord Prescott Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Prescott
Lord Prescott (Lab)
My Lords, is it my impression that the Minister is not here to reply to his letter and my debate in Committee about the safety of passengers and seafarers on vessels? This is a clause about safety on ships and inquiries, and I will seek to show that the “Marchioness” disaster was due to the negligence of the Department of Transport in dealing with that sad loss of 51 people. I mean no insult to the noble Baroness who will be replying, but I hope that I can record my argument, even given the lateness of the hour. The Minister then might, when he wakes up, read what has been said today because presumably there will be another opportunity to look at it when the Bill comes back at Third Reading.
My objection is a strong one relating to safety—this is not about parking, cars or whatever else, it is about safety on our seas and, in particular, on that river outside, the River Thames. The current proposal suggests that any rehearing into the loss of a ship, which may have occurred years ago, will now be at the discretion of the Minister and not be a duty. We are replacing a department’s duty and obligation to hold a hearing into the loss of a ship with a discretion. Evidence shows that discretion is not the best way if you want to get the best out of an inquiry.
Other ships have been lost and taken a long time to be found, such as the “Derbyshire”, which I mentioned in Committee, the fishing trawler “Gaul” and the “Marchioness”. Each time, particularly with the “Marchioness”, the Government refused to have an inquiry. It was normal practice and, indeed, the duty at the time when the “Marchioness” went down to hold a public inquiry as to the causes. So that we are in no doubt about it, all I am saying has been confirmed by the Thames Safety Inquiry report by Lord Justice Clarke. I should know, because when I became the Secretary of State I appointed him to meet the demands of the relatives who died on the vessel in the Thames that there should be a proper public inquiry. He spells out the reason for a public inquiry in the report, referring in turn to the report into the “Herald of Free Enterprise”:
“In every formal investigation it is of great importance that members of the public should feel confident that a searching investigation has been held, that nothing has been swept under the carpet and that no punches have been pulled”.
That is precisely what happened with the inquiry set up by the Department of Transport, headed at that time by Mr Cecil Parkinson. The ship went down and the normal cry came out for an inquiry, as had happened in a number of other cases. However, the Government made the decision that there would not be a full public inquiry or examination of the facts. They chose to use the maritime investigation board, which is under an obligation in law to investigate immediately the loss of a ship and then to report and act. It does not examine the circumstances of the loss. The Government insisted that it should be this maritime body that investigated, and it was the only inquiry that they implemented. What I find difficult about that is that the Government’s argument at the time was, “Look, we have the maritime inquiry; we cannot have a public inquiry because that might interfere with any public prosecutions or criminal actions that may be undertaken”. However, that does not fit with what happened with “Piper Alpha” or with other ships that went down, where they immediately set up a public inquiry and made clear that that did not matter. It was the same with the King’s Cross fire—the same department, almost in the same period, said, “We are having the inquiry, and are not stopping it simply because of any criminal investigations”. So I then think, “Why is the department doing it in certain circumstances but not in this one?”. To be truthful, it was in the process of changing the regulations for inquiries, but the duty that was imposed on the department still existed when the “Marchioness” went down and 51 people died.
The first question must be: why did the department not use the powers that were there and the duty on it to investigate and hold a public inquiry? That was all people were asking for. The department refused, constantly. It refused for 10 years to have a public inquiry. That started right at the beginning, which I will come to in a few minutes. So I ordered an inquiry.
Ministers, including the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, wrote to me after Committee—this is why I am particularly annoyed—protesting that I had said that they had hidden the truth about the loss of a vessel. That is a serious charge, so I invited them and the Secretary of State, who wrote to me as well, to read the Lord Justice Clarke report and come and discuss it here in the Lords when we debate these issues. I am a bit surprised that they did not turn up. I have a feeling—I do not know him too well—that he sat on that Bench for a few minutes and then presumably shot home to have a little sleep and not attend this debate. Perhaps he was not here, perhaps it was not him; it did look like him—another good-looking fella like the guy at the end there. The point is, he is not here for the debate. My accusation is a serious one and everything I say is backed up by Lord Justice Clarke’s safety inquiry. He started his inquiry wondering why there had not been an inquiry under the previous Administration. There is a chapter called, “Should a Public Inquiry Have Been Ordered?”, which gave me the quote I have just read. Another chapter asks, “Was This a Suitable Case for a Public Inquiry?”, and he said it certainly was: 51 people died; King’s Cross was less than that and they had a public inquiry. Lord Justice Clarke came to the conclusion that there should have been inquiry, there was good reason to have an inquiry, and the report contains a chapter called, “Why Was a Public Inquiry Not Held?”. That is the question.
At the heart of this debate is the argument of discretion. The department exercised discretion—in this case without carrying out the duty; it was to change some months later but it did not do the inquiry—so Lord Justice Clarke looked at the reasons given by the department. All the evidence was given and he looked at the papers. He was told by the legal department that you could not have an inquiry. That is exactly what the civil servants said to me when I came in in 1997, and it is referred to in this report. I held the inquiry. I did not take the advice of the department. I made a decision. I said it was the duty to do this. What happened then? He said that the department took the view that the criminal inquiry prevented it from having an inquiry. Lord Justice Clarke said that it did not. He examined it all in detail and said that it did not make any difference. There was a duty on the department to have an inquiry. It had been done before.
That is critical because the clause that I am seeking to remove is about not every vessel but those vessels that are found a number of years later, such as the “Derbyshire” and the “Gaul”. The amendment says if you apply to have a hearing into the circumstances—which we did for the “Derbyshire” and the “Gaul” but not for the “Marchioness”—you have to have the inquiry. But here the department chose not to recognise its obligation and duty. The amendment says I am changing the duty for a second hearing on the loss of a vessel to discretion.
I have to say to myself: does that make it better or worse? Does it make it easier, as deregulation is claimed to do, or does it mean you save money in case somebody else calls for an inquiry—as the families could—and the Secretary of State can say, “It’s my discretion, I will not do it”? But if you look at the circumstances of a loss, it is not only the safety, it is about the relatives who are left grieving and want to know what happened. The reality was, as Lord Justice Clarke showed, that compared to the maritime investigation, which took two years to be published when it should have been done immediately and made few recommendations, this inquiry looked at all the same circumstances and made 70 recommendations to improve safety on the River Thames. It said that the excuse of criminal law intervention was totally wrong and indeed had not been observed by the department before.
The coroner’s laws were reformed. It was discovered in the case of the “Marchioness” that the coroner had ordered that the hands and feet be cut off and therefore would not show the people the bodies. When the relatives said, “Can we see the bodies?”, he would not let them see them because he felt they would be upset. Well, I suppose they would be upset, but all those laws were changed by the Lord Justice and many others.
Lord McAvoy (Lab)
Will the Minister perhaps answer the point that we have repeatedly heard arguments tonight from Tory Peers which were quite clearly used in Committee for any length of time? They may not have taken as long as my noble friend has, so far, but collectively they have kept the whole thing going on their own particular interests.
Lord Prescott
I certainly agree with that. I have sat here all night and I now know more about parking, and God knows what. I am talking about the lives of people and the safety of our ships. I have to remind the Minister that we are an island nation. I would not have had to repeat what the Minister knows but the only reason that I have taken longer is that I think a noble Lord here in the House said that I should perhaps explain to the House what it was, because he was not there at the time. I have taken that choice and I have ended. I take the point, and I am sorry if I have caused any kind of problems with time, but quite frankly it is an important issue. I hope that the Minister will have the courage to turn up at the next stage in the House. He has that responsibility and he should face up to it.
Lord Greenway (CB)
My Lords, I declined to follow the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, down this route at Second Reading because I wanted to talk about other things and, unfortunately, when it was his turn to speak on this clause in Committee, I was chairing the All-Party Parliamentary Maritime and Ports Group upstairs. This is the first time that I have had a chance to speak on this subject and it looks as though I am third time unlucky, because I have been beaten by the clock as well, so I will be very brief.
The noble Lord, Lord Prescott, who did great things for British shipping in bringing in the tonnage tax when he was Secretary of State, speaks with enormous passion on this subject as a former seafarer. I, like him, share this passion for the sea and ships, which I have had all my life. However, in this instance my passion has been tempered by rational thought. We are looking here at something comparatively simple. This duty that is to be removed is the duty to reopen a maritime inquiry where new and important evidence has been discovered. In the case of the “Derbyshire”, which the noble Lord mentioned, there is no question at all that a Secretary of State would reopen an inquiry. However, there are occasions where it may not be such a good idea. After all, let us not forget that such inquiries cost £6 million to £8 million. They tie up busy people such as lawyers and maritime experts for quite a considerable time. In the fiscal circumstances in which the country still finds itself, if we can save any money then we should look at that quite seriously.
I will not go into the safety aspect because safety is in some ways an entirely different matter. Thankfully, the need to reopen these inquiries has happened on only three or four occasions. The need has got less since the Marine Accident Investigation Branch was set up in 1989. It has reduced the need for these inquiries. The whole system of looking into maritime affairs has been changing quite rapidly over the last 20 or 30 years. We have a different system in place and, in my opinion, I feel very happy that Clause 41 should remain part of the Bill.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, for his enormous patience here this evening. He had to listen to several debates on parking before we came to his issue. I think that the Minister who should have responded to him might have been a woman—
Baroness Williams of Trafford
It was not—okay, I stand corrected. I hope he will not be too disappointed by my response.
The purpose of this clause is very straightforward. It is to give the Secretary of State discretion in whether to reopen a formal investigation into a marine accident when new and important evidence that was not available at the time of the original investigation becomes known. Given the wide-ranging discussion that we have had, perhaps it is worth setting the clause in its broader context to dispel any fears that it will adversely affect maritime safety. That is obviously the prime concern of the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, as he said at the beginning of his speech.
Prior to 1989, if there was a marine accident, the Secretary of State could choose to order a preliminary inquiry and, whether or not a preliminary inquiry was held, to order a formal investigation. The latter was a kind of public inquiry, and as well as seeking to identify why an accident had occurred and how to improve safety at sea, it could also apportion liability and blame, and impose penalties on those at fault. Whereas the Secretary of State had the discretion to decide whether to order a formal investigation, he was obliged to reopen a formal investigation if either of the following was the case: if new and important evidence that was not available at the time of the original investigation became known; or if there appeared to be grounds to suspect a miscarriage of justice.
These arrangements had been in place under the Merchant Shipping Act 1894 and were largely re-enacted in the Merchant Shipping Act 1995. However, by the time of the 1995 Act, the normal arrangements for investigating marine accidents had changed considerably. In July 1989, the Marine Accident Investigation Branch was established. The Marine Accident Investigation Branch is functionally independent of the Department for Transport. This removes the conflict of interest identified in the “Herald of Free Enterprise” formal investigation, which was that the department had been both the regulator and investigator for the maritime industry.
All marine accidents must be reported to the Marine Accident Investigation Branch and although it must investigate the most serious of these, the chief inspector has the discretion to investigate others too. Virtually all shipping accidents investigated since 1989 have had only a Marine Accident Investigation Branch safety investigation. The entirely separate formal investigation process remains available should it be deemed necessary. Since 1989, it has been used only twice, once being the formal investigation into the “Marchioness” disaster, called by the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, in February 2000, as he has told us. Because of the near-universal reliance on the highly regarded Marine Accident Investigation Branch investigation process, when the need to reopen a formal investigation has arisen, the accidents concerned have been increasingly historic.
Three reopened formal investigations have been called since 1997. The first concerned the “Derbyshire”. Twenty years had elapsed since the loss of the ship when its report was published. In the most recent case, that of the “Trident”, 35 years had passed. As there have been so few formal investigations in recent years, any reopened now would be about an accident that occurred at least a quarter of a century ago. In fact, the likelihood is that that any new and important evidence that might be found today would relate to an accident of 50 years ago or more.
Over that time, the design of ships and their equipment, and industry crewing and operating practices, are likely to have changed significantly. The chances of there being any relevant lessons to learn for the benefit of today’s seafarer would be much reduced. Again, considering the reopened formal investigations since 1997, the “Derbyshire” report made 24 safety recommendations and the “Trident” just one. Given the changes that have taken place in how we investigate marine accidents, the duty to reopen a formal investigation when new and important evidence is found is simply much less relevant to maritime safety than it was when it was on the statute book in 1894. For the vast majority of accidents, the exemplary work of the Marine Accident Investigation Branch—identifying the causes of accidents and issuing recommendations without fear or favour—ensures the future safety of mariners and the protection of the marine environment.
Clause 41 has absolutely no bearing on these Marine Accident Investigation Branch safety investigations or whether their findings should be reviewed if new evidence is found. For exceptional cases, where a thorough public airing and examination of the facts is needed, it is right that the public inquiry-style process provided by formal investigations and reopened formal investigations remains available for Secretaries of State to use. It will remain available under Clause 41. Indeed, I reiterate the position of Her Majesty’s Government that if similar circumstances as applied in the case of the “Derbyshire” arose again, we would strongly expect to reopen the investigation. Clause 41 simply enables the Secretary of State to take a considered view on the likely benefits of reopening a formal investigation in circumstances where new evidence comes to light, just as she has discretion in whether to open a formal investigation in the first place. On that note, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Prescott
Given the circumstances I have explained, I will go through the practice of withdrawing the amendment at the moment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Deregulation Bill
Lord Prescott Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Prescott (Lab)
First, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Rooker on his usual diligence and research, looking into the details of why the Government want to remove this measure. Indeed, he is right: a lot has come from the inquiries, and I will refer to some of them. I support the deletion of this clause, which would repeal the Merchant Shipping Act 1995. Perhaps I should declare an interest, as I was a seaman for 10 years, a union official, and spent 40 years as a Member of Parliament, 10 of which as a Minister of Transport. I had to order some of these inquiries, and have experience of them, which I will bring to the Committee’s attention.
We are dealing here with the Secretary of State’s power to order a re-hearing of a formal investigation if there is new and important evidence. It is to that judgment that I now address some of my remarks: about how, given that discretion, you may make the wrong decision, and whether it weakens inquiries to simply remove the present duty to order a re-hearing, as the clause would do.
As the former Secretary of State with responsibility for these inquiries and requests for re-hearing, I think that we are all agreed that making judgments about these matters is a duty upon the Secretary of State. The clause would make it discretionary. That is what causes me concern.
I see in the nature of any re-hearing and use of discretionary powers, one is to take into account how long it is since the original inquiry before one is requested to have a re-hearing. The argument is often that it has been too long since the accident, people’s memories are not clear and it is not wise to hold an inquiry under those circumstances. Making a judgment as to the practical value of a re-hearing and what we would gain from it if, indeed, we have one are for the Minister to take account of in his considerations. But, at the end of the day, I should have thought it important, if there is to be a re-hearing, to have some idea of what one wants to find out. Can it be done by discretion? That is why we have inquiries. That is where the judgment comes in—to find out what the facts are. I suggest to noble Lords, and I hope that I will be able to prove, that the only thing a Minister can do at his discretion is to take the advice of his department, which is not always impartial in some circumstances, as I can show. A Minister is therefore highly influenced by the advice he receives from the department.
I should therefore like to present to the Minister and the Committee a couple of experiences that came out of three inquiries. I do not have to go into the detail. Some will already know them, and my noble friend has already mentioned one—the “Derbyshire”, which was a bulk carrier. Another vessel, a fishing trawler, was the “Gaul”, and the third, which most will know about, was the terrible tragedy of the “Marchioness”. When I came into government in 1997, I had to order a re-inquiry into the circumstances of those three incidents.
A long period of time was involved in all those because, after the vessels sank, no vessel was in evidence. It was not known where they were and they were only found later. The “Gaul” went down in 1974 but she was not found until some 18 years later by a TV company that went looking for her. The “Derbyshire” was another case of a vessel that went down and was found many years later, after money was provided from the trade unions and the European Community—to which my noble friend referred. They were pressing hard to get an inquiry as to where the ship was. She sank off Japan, with a loss of 44 lives, most of them from Liverpool, and people wanted to know why. I shall come to the “Marchioness” which was a particular case.
However, in the case of the “Gaul”, which went missing in 1974, she was found in, I think, 1997, with a loss of 36 lives. There had been an inquiry. Inevitably, if the vessel could not be found, one could probably say, to the best of one’s knowledge, “The vessel is not here but she went down in bad weather”. That seemed to be a reasonable conclusion. If there was no further information and no vessel, one had to arrive at that conclusion—and that is what it was. I have to tell noble Lords, as regards the “Gaul”, one has to take account of the relatives. Not much is said in here about the concerns of the relatives. They certainly want to be satisfied that everything has been done about it.
The “Gaul” case is peculiar because British trawlers were used as spy ships in the North Sea, and the Government admitted that to me in Answers to Parliamentary Questions at the time, in the 1970s. The relatives thought that the ship had gone down because she had been torpedoed on a spying mission. It sounds outrageous but that is what they believed. To satisfy that great concern, and knowing that such vessels had been used for spying off the coast of Russia, I ordered the inquiry—more to see if we could get the truth. I could only do that once the ship had been found, as happened many years later. When we investigated, there was no damage from any kind of military action; it was obvious that the ship had been overwhelmed. Anyone who knows about the fishing industry knows that the fish is wound in up the back and side, and if the sea is going the wrong way it fills that type of vessel which goes down very quickly. All the evidence showed that there was insufficient security covering the ship. She had taken a hit by a large wave and gone down. The circumstances of the loss due to the weather were confirmed, as the original inquiry had said in the absence of the ship. But we were trying to satisfy the relatives who wanted to know what happened. That is important in these circumstances.
That was the “Gaul”. I mentioned three ships, and the next was the “Derbyshire”, which sank off the coast of Japan in a typhoon. The first inquiry concluded that there was bad weather but went on to say that it suspected bad seamanship. That caused a great deal of concern among seafarers and their families.
Eighteen years later the ship was discovered after the trade unions went looking for it. Indeed, I had to make a request to Tony Blair who rang Clinton to ask whether we could use the very famous searching mechanisms of Woods Hole. That institution originally found the “Titanic” and it found the “Derbyshire”, which was smashed to bits. It managed to bring the ship together, and there was a remarkable exercise by the investigation branch in Britain to look at what had happened to it.
I do not have time to go into the technical issues but the point is that the re-inquiry then discovered the circumstances. It was not bad seamanship which they were led to believe because a rope hold had been left open and not tied down. Then it found that seamanship was not the problem but a piece of equipment on the ship had led to the loss of the vessel. It was controversial at the time because the shipyards were privatised and they had to give a guarantee that if there was negligence on the ship there would have to be compensation, which the Government would have to pay, not the people who bought the yard.
That is the background that Ministers have to consider when looking at inquiries. The “Derbyshire” case led to changes in the structures of vessels. Two or three of these bulk carriers had gone so it was right to hold the inquiry. The decision of the original inquiry had to be changed and, at the same time, we learnt about the safety of bulk carriers. Those of us in the industry saw an awful lot of bulk carriers, largely off Australia, but we always suspected that there was something wrong with the design.
Then there was the “Marchioness” and the loss of 51 lives. That was a terrible tragedy. In that case the Government did not hold one inquiry, never mind a re-inquiry. I constantly took delegations to Mr Parkinson who was then the Secretary of State. The relatives wanted an inquiry. You might ask why there was not a first inquiry. The Minister decided not to have one. He took the view that there was a court case under way on the “Bowbelle” and if it hit the “Marchioness”, that would lead to a problem. I said at the time of the accident in a letter to the Times that there looked to be negligence on behalf of the department. Why? Those launches had dance decks. When a new deck was put on an old ship the department had to make a decision on stability and safety. In this case the “Bowbelle” came up from behind and the skipper could not see because of all the dancers who were between him on the bridge and the stern.
In the week that the “Marchioness” went down I said that the department had some responsibility for agreeing to the design and the change to the vessel. The Minister had to make a decision about the inquiry. He said that there was nothing to learn from an inquiry. I pointed to a number of inquiries that changed safety procedures in the Thames. If a Minister has discretion in such cases, presumably his department has to be impartial. We discovered that there had been a mistake in the design of the vessel. The legal department told me that we could not have an inquiry because it was too long since the vessel went down. That is the kind of advice you would get from a Minister to another Minister—the memories will not be there. The legal people said to me, “You can’t get the legal power”. I had to go to the Lord Chancellor and get his view and tell my legal department that it was wrong. I ordered that inquiry.
These are the conflicts. A legal department could say, “We might have some responsibility here. We had better not have an inquiry—let’s leave it to the discretion of the Minister”. There were statements from the Minister at the time, and even though there was a duty to carry out an inquiry, he did not do so.
The point of using these ships as examples is that it was left to the discretion of the Minister. There are varying qualities of Minister, including me. One way or another we have to make a judgment. It is not a good idea to give discretion to a Minister who invariably does not come from a background of shipping as I do, which can be measured. Ministers are politicians who come from various backgrounds. He is reliant on experts but should exercise discretion over whether there is anything to be learnt from reopening an inquiry. How do you know that unless you make some inquiries? Do you just make a judgment on something and say, “I have a feeling about this. I’ve read about it in all the papers. They suggest that we should not reopen the inquiry and I won’t”.? You need the facts. How the heck do you get the facts unless they are obtained through investigation and inquiry? Are we actually saying that the Minister can make a decision without knowing the facts? I am not saying that all Ministers necessarily take the advice that is offered. I was given good advice by the department. However, when a decision is left to a Minister’s discretion, he may be overwhelmed by the experts around him whose interest is not to have a further inquiry, as I have shown in the examples I have given.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
Yes, it was the reopening of the inquiry, and it happened 20 or so years after the accident.
I stress that, even if there were no obligation to reopen an inquiry, I would strongly expect one to be called if similar circumstances to the “Derbyshire” applied. Of course, I acknowledge the importance of the reopened investigation into, for instance, the loss of the “Derbyshire” both in terms of providing answers to the bereaved families of those who lost their lives and in contributing to enhanced maritime safety for the benefit of all mariners.
I understand all the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, in tabling this amendment and by the noble Lords, Lord Davies of Oldham and Lord Prescott. I assure your Lordships that any decision on whether to reopen a formal investigation would be taken very seriously, taking into account the views of all interested parties, including, of course, trade unions.
During consideration of this clause in the other place, the then Solicitor-General explained the principles of how the Secretary of State would approach the decision. My honourable friend confirmed that each case for reopening would be considered on its individual merits. Such considerations would include, although they would not be limited to, the likelihood of lessons being learnt that would improve the safety of current marine operations and ship design; the likelihood of being able to identify the true cause or causes of marine accidents where these had been particularly uncertain prior to the evidence being found; and the likelihood of uncovering information that would provide a deeper understanding of the causes of other marine accidents. In short, Clause 40 would allow the Secretary of State to consider the individual circumstances of a formal investigation when new and important evidence was found, taking a rounded view of the best ways to improve maritime safety.
The noble Lord, Lord Prescott, in referring to his experience, expressed concern about the impartiality of the department and the question of fault. Now, the Marine Accident Investigation Branch must undertake impartial investigations and assess evidence, and indeed it could well criticise any department at fault.
Lord Prescott
On that point, I thank the Minister for his explanation. The Marine Accident Investigation Branch has always had a responsibility to investigate. It did so in the case of the “Marchioness” but the Government would not produce the report.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
I think that I may need some advice from behind on that. While I am receiving that, I should mention that the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, referred to what I would describe as “crimes at sea”, which the Government obviously take very seriously.
The Government have promoted guidance on the preservation of evidence at crime scenes with the International Maritime Organization. In our view, these are matters that we must take forward on an international level, with international agreements. I very much understand the points about preservation of evidence and about offering information and understanding to families with loved ones who are in this position.
If I am not given the information now that I hope I might be about to be given, I will be in touch with the noble Lord. However, given all the circumstances, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Prescott
I thank the Minister very much for giving a response to the last point—I could not expect him to have all the details, but at least he is aware of the problem. However, I still believe it is the right of every British citizen to have an investigation or an inquest—if, for example, their daughter has died. We should surely be entitled to report back to the people and have our Government involved in an inquest, as the Americans are doing. Our Government say, “It happened on a ship registered in the Bahamas”—but the authorities there have not had an inquest, so we should do it. I do not expect the Minister to give an answer, as it is a highly technical point, but perhaps he could just write to me with information from the department as to why we cannot have an inquest on a citizen who has gone missing, whatever the circumstances. The Americans have acted on it, and the least we could do is offer an inquest in which our own police are involved.
Lord Rooker
Is the Minister going to get back up with the advice he has got?
Lord Rooker
My Lords, I sincerely thank the Minister for his response. This is not an area I have any detailed knowledge of whatever, but I understand that over the years there have been considerable improvements, and heaven forbid there is another big loss. Part of the briefing that I have is about the size of ships. The “Derbyshire” remains the largest UK-registered ship to have been lost at sea—I was unaware of that. It was big, with a gross tonnage of 91,000. As my noble friend said, at the time the bulk carriers accounted for only 7% of the world fleet but for 57% of lost ships, so there was clearly something wrong there that had to be looked at. I find it astonishing that it was found on the sea bed at 4,200 metres. That is an astonishing depth at which to locate and recover a ship.
I will refrain from saying too much about the “Trident”, because with my noble friend here I am trying to cut down my material, but the Minister referred to it. The “Trident” was lost for 35 years. Was there not a sniff at one time that because it had been lost for so long, the cost of reopening the case was considered by some people disproportionate to the potential benefits? Only one recommendation came out of that, while 22 came out of the “Derbyshire”. The Government’s argument—my noble friend raised this because of his detailed knowledge—completely ignores the benefit of emotional closure for the families. The Minister did not refer to that at all, but it is a matter which should be addressed. If there is a sniff about cost here, I would like some further and better particulars before Report. No one is making a cost argument, I am just naturally suspicious and it is a factor that I think has to be considered at the back of our minds.
I am on record as supporting the Bill and am very much in favour of deregulation. The Government do not go far enough sometimes, and the Bill introduces regulation to avoid regulation, so it does bits of both. However, the issue here, unlike other parts of the Bill, is that we know that people have died or have been missing for decades. As a result, we know we have the issue of the families, which should be considered. There are very few cases, as has been said.
Finally, my noble friend is quite right about the discretion of argument. Just looking around the Room, I see former departmental Ministers. I do not know about the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, but there is a difference in the coalition between being Whips and being answerable for other Ministers; I fully accept that. My noble friends Lord Whitty and Lord Prescott and I have been departmental Ministers—I was at a much lower level than my noble friend Lord Prescott—but the issue of discretion is interesting. You are allowed, as a Minister, to choose the colour of your car.
Lord Rooker
I did not mean to raise that. My driver always chose the car; but I was allowed to choose the colour. When it comes to big issues where there is discretion, the lawyers pile into the offices, because they are always worried sick about setting a precedent. They will admit that you have discretion and say, “Minister, it is your decision. However, our job is to advise you”. You get this pile of stuff about the pros and cons of creating a precedent. You are almost warned that you are not allowed to create precedents; it goes against the grain. Then their advice will be given to you in writing as part of the audit trail for the Permanent Secretary. If your decision leads to public expenditure that they might not agree with, that note will go to the National Audit Office and the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
So all the pressure on the Minister is not to do it: do not use your discretion. We are talking about inquiries. Inquiries cost money; we know that. I have been in six different departments and I have watched that happen in each one—except in Northern Ireland, which was slightly different. There is pressure not to use discretion. I am not saying that it is never used, because clearly it was in the case raised by my noble friend, and I have seen it in other cases, such as when I was at the Home Office with David Blunkett.
When it is legal, it is clear cut. You think, “There is no decision to take; it is taken for me”. That is where seniority comes in. When you are considering chief executives, how much discretion do they have? If they do not have a lot of discretion, the pay grade is lower than for those who have discretion. Those who have discretion are, by and large, pressured in a very subtle way not to use it. As I said, it is about the lawyers, the accounting officer’s certificate and the Perm Sec. Discretion is there on paper. Good examples can be given—I freely admit that—where Ministers exercise it, and it is right and proper that they do. I am just saying that my experience across departments was that, by and large, the pressure is not to use your discretion.
In this case, I have come to the conclusion that we should leave this well alone and I hope that in due course, the House or the Government—it would be better if the Government did it—remove the clause or substantially rewrite it. I hope that that is the message that Ministers will take back to the department: that the provision is unsatisfactory. Obviously, we will return to it on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Parliamentary Privilege (Defamation) Bill [HL]
Lord Prescott Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Prescott (Lab)
My Lords, I offer my congratulations to the noble, Lord Lester, for his Parliamentary Privilege (Defamation) Bill, which I support on the balance of the arguments. As the noble Lord pointed out, it arises from a dispute between a Member of Parliament in the other House and a paper, the Guardian. Therefore, this conflict raises a number of points in my mind about parliamentary privilege.
The first point arises from a decision taken in the courts in dealing with Rebekah Brooks. Before the committee of the House that dealt with the matter, she gave evidence that she or they had been involved in payments to the police. That is a matter of considerable concern but, despite being covered by all the press, it could not be put in the court for consideration because parliamentary privilege prevented it being presented there. That may have been right but it meant that the jury in the court did not get an important point which they should have considered.
Secondly, can the Minister confirm—or perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Lester, can comment on this—whether the defamation case against the media is affected by the changes made in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act? With the transfer of costs that were taking place under that legislation, which we recall debating in this House, an exemption was made for the media cases. That was for a number of reasons. Under the old Act the transfer of costs, whether they were to do with the premiums for insurance or the actual costs and success fees, remained the same. Can the Minister confirm whether that is still the case? It is particularly important for many of those who might want to sue for defamation in regard to the hacking cases that are now before the courts. Is that still the position or do the Government intend to repeal that? There was some talk about a repeal perhaps being considered against the background of the introduction of the royal charter, given what Leveson pointed out was a means of dealing with some of these claims. Perhaps the Minister could write to me about that, as there is a complication of things here, but I would be grateful if he could give a statement on that.
Thirdly, is the Minister aware that during the recent Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions, which took evidence on super-injunctions and reported to this Chamber, a man called Mr Burby gave evidence to that committee? I protested about that because Mr Burby was involved in the courts for blackmail and harassment. He was under an injunction not to say anything about the case but he simply went to the committee and gave his statement, which was exactly what the court had prevented. The committee then published the whole of the accusations he was making and his case, completely in defiance of the injunction. How was it able to do that? By parliamentary privilege, as on the one hand the committee was able to claim, “We produce under the name and principle of parliamentary privilege”, yet the paper which could not do so under the court injunction then reported everything that he had said, using the report published by the committee, and claimed parliamentary privilege for that.
The only person who really suffered from that lack of the proper application of parliamentary privilege was the woman who was in court trying to protect her name. The court supported her and gave an injunction against this man but she was the one who suffered. The court was not able to protect under what we would normally have thought its role was, simply because Parliament had decided, “Publish and be damned”. That gives no satisfaction to the poor woman before the courts who was trying to secure justice for charges made against her on a matter of harassment and blackmail, so that raised a number of questions in my mind about the use of parliamentary privilege.
I have a couple of other points about the operation of parliamentary privilege. We have a rule in both Houses, or so I thought, about sub judice so that if a matter is before the court we are prevented from speaking about it. No law actually says that; it is apparently up to the Speaker, if he can get in before anybody makes a sub judice statement. There are a number of examples of that. It can almost be raised, although it is not quite right to do so, in regard to the Prime Minister making a statement before they were finished in the court. We have heard the exchanges between the judge and the Prime Minister. It could be argued that it was not made here but in No. 10, but does parliamentary privilege extend there? In regard to sub judice, the judge certainly made a point about politicians—and we can include in that the Prime Minister—going out and making a statement. The Prime Minister judged that he should make an apology that everybody thought was necessary; however, he did it while the case was under way. All politicians were warned about that. I think that both sides ran in a bit too fast, but one certainly led to the other. Was that under the protection of parliamentary privilege? Was it a breach of sub judice?
Recently in the other place there was an MP who decided that he wanted to get something on the record because he had told the press that he was going to say something, even though it was sub judice. What did he do? He jumped up before the Speaker could say anything. He got the relevant few words out before the Speaker said, “Now, now, sub judice”, and the press printed it because it was protected by parliamentary privilege. If you ask, “What is the power of the Speaker?”, you are told, “Ah, you won’t get into debates in future”—that is, the Speaker’s eye will never find you in the Chamber. Still, I am afraid that if someone is looking for a word or two in the papers and wants to abuse the parliamentary protection system, then that is an abuse.
The examples I have referred to show that we have parliamentary privilege. It is an important privilege, provided that it is not abused. It is true that there may be some different interpretations of what I have said here, but it is important that parliamentary privilege is maintained and not abused. There are examples of such abuse through ignorance, through intention or because of a partnership between the press and some Member who wants to get a few lines in the papers and then uses parliamentary privilege to achieve it, and parliamentary privilege was not intended for that. I simply want to raise the issue that this is an important principle that we enjoy, and over my 40 years in Parliament I have sometimes seen it abused in different ways. In the main it has worked properly but, since we are now talking about parliamentary privilege, it is about time that we considered preventing this kind of abuse of it.
China: Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament
Lord Prescott Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Prescott
My Lords, I would like to follow the reason given by the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, and say that I am not going to talk a great deal about the nuclear situation. I think it is a serious matter and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Browne, on the debate. I have sat and listened to a great deal, although the absurdities of the argument on nuclear become clearer time and again. There are good and bad nuclear states, and we do not know if Israel is one or not. What is clear is that they all exercise a considerable amount of power and influence in their regions. It is not surprising therefore that Iran, whatever we say, might secure a weapon to have that kind of influence.
I used to live near Capenhurst as a young lad and I used to hear all the arguments about why we needed the weapon. It was not a weapon of war—it was to be purely for energy and civil use. We know that the two go together, and that is one of the problems. My concern is with the security of the world, and China’s influence on it. I want to concentrate some of my remarks on my own experiences with China.
I was appointed chair of the China Task Force by Premier Wen and Tony Blair. I was asked to look at how to improve the relationships between China and the UK in medicine, education, the arts, economy, climate change and sustainable cities. They are all very relevant to the threats to security, prosperity and the economic facts that we face in our global problems today. I was clearly involved with climate change. We know that if you accept the science there is a connection between cutting carbon emissions and climate change. The consequences that will flow from that are very considerable indeed. I accept the science and I think most people do. The negotiations I led at Kyoto in 1997 took the first steps towards recognising that problem and targeting the cut in carbon gas emissions. It was an important step forward but it was only for the 47 industrial nations. I first saw the influence of China with the Group of 77. We were trying to find a global agreement with very difficult problems to be solved. China played a major part in getting the Group of 77 to agree that the Kyoto agreement could go ahead, even though they did not believe that the rich nations, to which the carbon targets would apply, would make it work. But they went along. If it had not been for China, we would not have got the first stage of Kyoto. The targets did not directly affect China, as it was absolved from them, as were the developing countries.
That was the first time I saw the influence of China and I knew from then, in the 10 years of negotiations I continued to play a part in as the Deputy Prime Minister, that you really need to have China on board in those discussions. I also knew that you needed to have America on board. In the case of climate change, the two competitors were China and America. They both had different views and saw themselves as competitors. Indeed when the Kyoto agreement is finally ratified, we will have to go without America because America was not prepared to accept the kind of changes that were necessary to achieve that global solution to a global problem.
I can give a good example, which came out of the negotiations. We were trying to get an agreement by 2012 and, in the later stages, which the Prime Minister and the President of the United States attended in Copenhagen—they all turned up—they could not agree a common formula which would have meant a global solution to a global problem. What was that? Simply, if there were a limit on the amount of carbon that you could issue, that would limit the consequences of growth in different countries. They all saw it that way. Mr Todd, who was the American negotiator, said at one stage, “Look, the problem between China and America is very simple: we are both the biggest producers of carbon”. That is true. Both of them are responsible for about 25% of the world’s production of carbon. He said, “Therefore, it is a mathematical problem, not a moral one”. If you want to find consensus and agreement, you had better start thinking about how to get agreement on fair terms. It is all right with nuclear—if you have the bomb, you are a negotiator. I was very interested to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Browne, said about us having the bomb but being on the outside when the discussions go on between the three big players.
Another interesting point came from that: why is China in the P5? It is only in it because it has the nuclear weapon. China has now been admitted into the IMF, the G8 and all the other organisations that it is part of, including the ILO, because people recognise that China has a major influence on decisions, if you want a global solution to a global problem. The problems are of that nature, the same as nuclear. The nuclear situation is about a military equation; it is about who is paying for it, who has the bomb and whether we can keep it. I was interested to hear a noble Lord saying, “I would want the bomb because it keeps peace”. He may well be right, but I do not know. The real point is that in the international arguments on the economy, you must have fairness, and that fairness has to be based not on equality but on equity and what is fair to all. The United Nations principles will apply.
In arguing his case, Mr Stern was ignoring the fundamental point of fairness; namely, if you measure the contribution of the gases that are causing a problem and poisoning the world on a per capita basis, you begin to find that it is 20 tonnes per person in America and six tonnes per person in China, and less in other countries. If you say you have to limit growth because of the scientific predictions, you had better find a principle that is fair to all. In the UN, that principle was about equal opportunities; indeed, it is the same common principle but with different responsibilities and capabilities. That is one of the main principles that we shall need if we are to find a global solution to a global problem. In this case, everyone will be affected by the consequences of climate change. We hear it and see it, day after day. To that extent, to find a solution you had better have principles that people can say are fair to all. That is very important.
Another example of that was when the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, spoke of a major economic power. That is true, but China is often interpreted in western press—not that they are very friendly to China—as being second, if you measure it by GDP. Of course, that is more than Japan. I remember when the figures came out but they are now predicting that it will be greater than America. If you measure it per capita, that is not the case. The wealth of China measured in GNP is about halfway up the high-income countries. Perhaps you are going to ask China to co-operate, to limit their growth and not to bring as many people out of poverty. I was pleased to hear someone mention that. Fifteen million people a year come out of agriculture into jobs in the cities. They have reduced poverty by half a million; it is one of the few countries that has been able to do that. Of course, it has a massive scale of poverty, but that must be taken into account.
The GDP is another measure that is wrongly interpreted and which needs to be understood. It leads to misunderstandings. More importantly, it leads to a lack of consensus on how you deal with the problem. People say to me that China is basically a super power, but China does not seem to like that; it is the first to say that it is not a super power. I say, “You are the first undeveloped nation that I have noticed that sends a rocket to the moon”. It is like India, another great country that is developing at a rate of growth three and four times greater than the developed countries. That is a significant factor; the growth in the world will come from developing countries. We must also recognise that they will produce more carbon in the process. If you recognise that principle, does that mean giving a greater share of the growth to these countries, which are limited by the carbon output? This is a big, fundamental question of seeking to find agreement not between the 47 countries we had at Kyoto but between 190-odd countries. After all, they will all be affected by it, so while we begin this discussion about nuclear, prosperity and peace will be maintained by what people feel to be a fair share of whatever happens in these global solutions. China has shown that it wants to be involved and wants international stability. Why would it not? It fears America, as America fears China. As we put more and more military equipment around different parts of the world, the Chinese think that is evidence of that.
One point I would really like to make, which has always influenced me on this, is that China and India are in the early stages of industrialisation. That means they have been in that process for only about 30 years. We had 200 years of industrialisation. When you look at the criticism concerning human rights, civil rights and trade union rights, all those concerns were fought against in our country. We will fight against them in China; that is what is happening at the moment. There is a correlation with the development of industrial growth, as along with it came liberties that were fought for by individuals. That is precisely what happened in this country. While we must readily protest to China—I have done that myself by saying to premiers, “You have to have recognition of human rights. You must be doing that”—you do not then lecture them as if we were somehow a nation that had no problems in human rights. Look at the history of Britain. Blimey—in the colonies, and even in Northern Ireland, did we observe every human right consideration? Of course we did not. We are told constantly about that.
My point is not to apologise for that but to try to understand what motivates the Chinese in this process, if it is to have a major part. Why do they want to play a part? Why are they learning through the process of industrialisation how they can play a part and develop all those things that we in our democratic states say they should be aiming for? I will argue that that is the case, but understand the process: do not make it more difficult or look as if we are hostile to them. What we need is to encourage them to the best practices, and I think that change is coming.
I had a conversation in a lighter tone with Premier Zhu Rongji. In 1998 or 1999, he gave me a book to read on the Chinese economy. He asked me the next day what I thought of it. I said, “It is very impressive. You have growth in one year that we cannot get in 10”, which of course is continuing, “but I am confused”. He asked, “What are you confused about”? I said, “I kept reading in the book about the socialist market economy. What the heck is that?”. He began to explain it to me, using an example that some of your Lordships may remember. Ted Heath was well liked in China. He went to China and asked if he could bring a panda bear back. He brought a panda called Chi-Chi back; I think it went to Whipsnade zoo. He went there for a second time a year later and asked for a second panda. They told him, “This time it will be $1 million”. Ted Heath naturally said, “The first one was free. Why is the second one $1 million?”. They said, “Ah, it is now the socialist market economy”.
The Chinese are going through that process of change and if they are using that language, they understand where they are going, but it will be their process. What they call socialism is with Chinese characteristics, and in defining that we need to understand where they are going and how. Leadership is an important part of that, as indeed is the development of the public themselves. To that extent, I am hopeful that your Lordships will see those developments. We need to understand the change and measure it against some of our own history, instead of being hypercritical and assuming that just by taking democratic plants and planting it there, all they have to do is to find the political will. Well, the democratic process can be very hurtful, as I found in Humberside this week. Leaving that aside, I would say on this that China will play a major part, whether that is through the military, peace, security or climate change, which I have spent most of my time on. They will play that part as a willing partner and we should try to understand the difficulties that are taking place. After all, we will be the beneficiaries of an enlarged China rather than there being any question of threats and Cold Warriors, as I heard earlier. We need to ensure that China plays a positive role and develops itself, and we need to understand its difficulties. It is just as important to reach agreement on this among the P5 countries as it is to get 196 nations to agree on the Kyoto agreement by 2016.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Lord Prescott Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Prescott
My Lords, in the four minutes available to me, I should like to make one or two points about the Bill. I agree with some of it, but my main concern, as a number of noble Lords have expressed, is the turnout. After all, one hopes to get the highest turnout in democratic participation.
Some things in the Bill may improve that. Clause 14 makes it clear that there will no longer be the discrimination whereby there must be three weeks between parish and community council elections. They are being brought together to take place on the same day as the European elections, local government elections, and the parliamentary general election. Those elections are regularly held. However, what about the police commissioner elections? They will be held every four years but are not mentioned in the Bill. Is it necessary to include them to make sure that they can be held on the same day? It is important to do that because the Government, for one reason or another, have decided to hold the elections for police commissioner in November, which will certainly affect the turnout. I therefore hope that when we discuss these matters the Government will look at how the timing will affect those elections.
I had three points to make. The second relates to the statement on the cover of the Bill in relation to the European Convention on Human Rights. It refers to Section 19(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act and then explains further inside. However, Article 8 is about voting. What is the Government’s position on prisoner voting? Does this mean that the human rights provisions apply only in a narrow sense, because there is difficulty? As the Deputy Prime Minister in the other place made clear, the legislation on House of Lords reform does not conform to the Human Rights Act and it could not be written on the face of the Bill. What is the position now? Can the registrar register prisoners? Can they have a vote? Or has there been just a limited human rights interpretation? Perhaps the Minister could tell us.
I apologise for raising matters directly on the police commissioner elections, but on the day that the Grand Committee dealt with that legislation we had the Statement on G4S. I chose to attend here in the Chamber and was therefore denied the opportunity to raise points in that Committee. I hope that the Minister will bear with me as regards a particular point that he may be able to help us with, perhaps not by answering today but by writing to me about it. There is the problem of this new kind of election, which involves police authorities, chief constables and the inspectorate all making decisions in their own different ways on how the candidates are to be consulted. Some are laying down rules for some candidates by saying, “You must all sit in the room together”. As we know, there is nothing in that which we would agree with. You could do it on the first occasion, but each candidate must individually have the right to talk to either the chief constable or the police authority. That seems to be the agreement between those two bodies, but it is not the opinion of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, which I have here. It makes it clear that the meetings should take place on a one-to-one basis.
Obviously there are different ways of running this. An example is the financing of the mayor’s election. There will be financing for that but not for these elections. Different rules apply. What concerns me most—the Minister made it clear—is that the Government are looking for a common way to run elections in the future. I understand that and there is a lot of sense in it. However, if we are deciding new rules particularly for this election I wonder whether they might say that legislation is not required, but merely a message from the Home Office to say to the parties involved, “Why don’t you actually allow what is normal in other elections?”. If a candidate chooses to talk to the parties whom he is supposed to ask for information—or, indeed, if he has a responsibility to produce a plan—he should be able to consult them. I hope the Minister will tell his colleagues that they should set out that message, because things are under way. Finally, it is said that things will have to wait until you are registered as a candidate. That will be in October. Then a five-year plan will be produced for us, all within six weeks, that will have to be ready to give to the Government. A bit of common sense should apply here. There should be a common rule and candidates should have the right to be able to talk face to face.
Voluntary Sector and Social Enterprise
Lord Prescott Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Prescott
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, on providing us with this opportunity to debate issues involved in voluntary service and social enterprise. I am sure that most of us have been actively involved in them through our political lives, have enjoyed the work and continue to do so. However, the noble Baroness defined what she thinks is voluntary, and perhaps it is being exploited. I wish to draw attention to the dangers that are beginning to develop as voluntary labour is brought into the commercial sector and is governed by contract, not community feeling, and profit. That is an important issue for us to consider.
Problems are developing with a big pool of unemployed people being asked to do voluntary work, whether it is voluntary in the sense that you agree to it, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said, or voluntary in the sense of military service when you are told that this is what you will do. When I see the pool of the unemployed and the mandatory work policies being brought in by the Government—and all Governments have been involved in some part of welfare to work—I worry that the schemes that are developing at present are putting greater pressure on unemployed people to volunteer.
A classic example of that happened quite recently under London Bridge, where a number of young people were dumped in the most difficult circumstances. It was during the jubilee celebrations, and they did not enjoy the wonderful experience that the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, has just referred to. To that extent, I want to address my remarks to the kind of development that is occurring in the name of voluntary contribution. In that case, it was people who were providing marshalling services at the Queen's Jubilee, which was a very important thing to do. Some were paid very lowly and some were given no pay and had to face the pressures applied in the name of the voluntary community. First, they were told, “Please come on this—we’ll pay you”, then when they got on to the bus were told, “No, we’re not going to pay you”. Secondly, they were told, “If you don’t do this, you’ll lose your benefit”. A third factor was the incentive that they would probably get a job at the Olympics site at £8.70 an hour, which is quite interesting because that was part of the contract.
My concern is that this is now all about contracts and subcontract work. It is no longer a case of people working voluntarily in the community, but of saying to people, many of them young, “You’ve now been involved in this long-term. You’re going to be offered a job that you can’t refuse”. It is almost like the Mafia kind of contract: “I’m going to offer you a contract that you can’t refuse”, and so you go into the system and work. I will stick to the one case that I am on about; it concerns a company called Close Protection UK that had the responsibility to train these people—not to pay them—and to put them on to go and do marshalling services. That system is now being considered for fire marshalling work at the Olympics site, but I will come back to that in a second. The people got on the bus and suffered a number of indignities. I do not have time to go through them, because a lot of people want to speak in this debate, but clearly they did not have food or access to toilet facilities. It was a damp site to take a tent to as it was pouring down with rain—we all know the amount of rain there was then. Nobody seemed to care at all about those conditions, but we should be concerned if more and more people are being put into that situation when hoping to get from welfare to work. We should not just exploit them by saying that the work is unpaid.
My worry is that the contract given to this company by the London authorities and others to bring in people to work as marshals was for £1.5 million. If that is the case with work experience, why was a condition not laid down in the contract that all the workers has to be paid a certain amount, as is the requirement for the Olympics? If that is not done, companies are more likely to make more profit by using people who are not paid. That is the concern beginning to develop around the exploitation of voluntary labour. Since there have been many reports in the papers, let me say that I have interviewed a lot of the young people who were involved in this and I have a lot of examples of what they said went on that night. It is true that there have been other examples of those who thought that it was a good experience, so there is some dispute, but it is important to find out what really went on.
With the development of these schemes, I worry that the big companies are getting millions and millions of pounds, as we recently saw with A4e. I think that the Government are already offering £2 billion to get these people off work—they are to be paid in some cases but not in others. There is a requirement for training, which sounds like a few hours a week of NVQ and is not very satisfactory. Basically, it means that these people are then pressed into playing a role. I think we are all aware of A4e, which is now involved in trying to show the numbers it got into jobs. In reality, fraud was involved and cases are under way. It is not limited to that company; it is the process of the contract work that is involved.
Let me take this example. Prospects, a private company, had a contract. It was in fact a non-profit company even under Labour, when it dealt with Ofsted. It then turned itself into a mutual company so that it could make profits and has made something like £11 million this year. The motivation then becomes not to public service but to the profitability of that investment by private companies. What begins to concern me is the conflict between the public interest involved and the private interest that is motivated by securing a profit. When the contract was given by a public authority to Prospects, it then had to go to a charity, Tomorrow’s People, which became involved. It then rakes up the people for the south-west area and then goes to another body on another subcontract. They are the ones that have basically exploited the situation.
I do not have the time to go into all those difficulties, but they are now going to be offered the job of fire marshals—we are replacing firemen with fire marshals at the Olympics. I am worried about that. I have written to the Home Secretary. I have written to LOCOG, which set the contract. I cannot go into all the details of the replies but I can tell you that LOCOG is doing nothing about it; it is confirming the contract. If we are going to put our young people in the hands of these people, what we should be saying is, “Have we not got a responsibility for governance?”. The lady who is in charge of this company has been done for perjury; she has had a number of companies. You would not trust any company with her, frankly. But now the inquiry is under way, we will see what the real facts are.
In conclusion—looking at the time, before the noble Baroness gets up to remind me; as I understand it, you can go to 10 minutes but I am not doing that.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but this is a time-limited debate. As it makes clear on the Order Paper, Back-Bench contributions are limited to six minutes.
Lord Prescott
I apologise. I took advice; obviously I got the wrong advice, but I will not exploit that situation. This whole business now means that a massive pool of cheap labour is going to be exploited, and now G4S even wants to buy the police and replace them with this kind of labour. We had better start looking at what is happening with the exploitation of people. I hope we can have a public debate about it. We have started it thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and I am obliged to her, but I would like to get into the details of the issue perhaps when there are fewer people here and I can have a longer time to develop the argument.
Transparency
Lord Prescott Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Prescott
I welcome the contribution that was made by the noble Lord, Lord Elton. I will pursue the topic in a different way, but will take up his opening remarks on accountability. He wanted to look at how Ministers are driving such a policy and will judge them on that. I want to address my remarks to that point on transparency. We can all agree that basic legislation has been passed by all Governments to move in this direction. Indeed, my own Government, in which I was in the Cabinet, introduced the Freedom of Information Act, which was probably the most important piece of the legislation to which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, referred. Alongside that, there are other factors, such as the register of interests and the register of lobbyists—all these things play an important part in transparency and accountability. There is general agreement on that.
The one difference between this Government and my own of course is that we were able to pass legislation; this Government have been in office only 18 months, so we have to give time to see their legislative framework. We know already that the commitment to the register of lobbyists has not yet come about, although there is some talk that they may introduce that. We will wait and see. In all these matters, I am particularly concerned whether those who are driving this policy in this Cabinet are actually doing what they believe. The Prime Minister has said he wants to see a revolution in transparency. Why did he find it so difficult to tell us how much taxpayers’ money he spent on a kitchen and bathroom? I do not deny him that, but it is about transparency over taxpayers’ money. When he has his regular meetings with the Murdoch operation—not a company known for transparency—a meal becomes a private meal and we are not entitled to know what was discussed. That seems to set some of the tone.
Looking at other members of the Cabinet who are leading and driving this policy, the Secretary of State for Education, Mr Gove, had to admit that he was using private e-mails to avoid having to report under freedom of information rules. He was a Cabinet Minister, avoiding saying what he was doing. The Secretary of State for Defence, Dr Fox, has now gone but he certainly was not showing a great deal of transparency in his actions in pursuing a separate foreign policy. The latest example is the big argument between the Home Secretary and a senior civil servant—three inquiries are under way but there is a great big argument about transparency. That indicates there is not a great deal of commitment to be open in the information being made available about the action of those Cabinet Ministers.
The one I want to address my attention to is Mr Pickles —the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. He almost makes himself the champion of disclosure of information, but, as we know, quite recently he had a meal in the Savoy Hotel with Bell Pottinger and some other people involved with planning. He said, “Oh, I don’t have to declare that”—and he did not. He did not declare it in the register of interests, he fended off the Ministerial Code and he also declared in those cases that it was a private affair, as did the Prime Minister, Mr Cameron. We have found a new argument for non-disclosure—provided it is private, you do not have to disclose it. More important is what is discussed and said—that is what transparency is about. It undermines the credibility of those who say they believe in greater transparency. Bearing in mind that he makes this point about spending on a private meal, Mr Pickles has also gone out of his way to make clear that I was apparently spending money—something that the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, also made a great deal of comment about—on a meal that I had in a casino in Australia. The Government at that time, in 2004, were looking at casinos as part of regeneration, and we insisted that we paid the bill. We used the government credit card. By the way, despite what the press implied, I have no credit card from the Government. I understood that Ministers did not have credit cards. It is the accountability officer who is in charge of those matters.
Nevertheless, a great deal of play was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, by Mr Shapps, the Housing Minister, and by Mr Pickles—all three of them party officials, either head of their party, vice-chairman or previous chairman. It seems to me that they are politically motivated people. Years ago I was accused of that and fought a Labour Government who claimed that I was politically motivated. I put my hand up; I was proud to be that. These three people should ask themselves whether they were not acting in a political way in making their statements about that matter. That is my concern, and I want to justify it by making this point.
All the headlines of the Tory press, working with the Tory Ministers, made the point that Prescott was gambling. I have never gambled in my life, except in politics; I have done a lot of that but I have not put money on things. The implication was that I was spending taxpayers’ money. That was a lie, untrue, although the words were carefully used. I could have taken action, but it was my department. It was as if I was handling my department’s expenditure card. My question is: what is the Government’s position on these expenditures? Currently it is not necessary to reveal information for sums below £500, only above £500. With the help of the Library, I have found that in recent announcements by the Cabinet Office and the Departments of Energy, of Health and of Justice, when asked whether they had a record of expenditures below £500, they all said, “No, because it is too expensive to find that kind of information”. Furthermore, they said that they cannot go as far back as 2007-08. Yet this department goes back to 2004 and 2006. If you consider every bit of expenditure, of course it is not too expensive.
I do not know whether the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, looked at that information, but it actually said that I spent that money in a restaurant. I admit that the department did spend money in the casino. However, if she is concerned about waste, as she often claims, why did she not investigate the figures to see that £2,000 was spent on that credit card for watches? Why the hell would anyone want to spend that sum buying four watches on a government credit card? Why did that not arise and cause concern? Apparently it did not. In those circumstances, why was it not investigated? The Government gave their own answer in July, saying that the evidence was that the cards were cloned. Why were they so eager to bring attention to me when they knew that the cards had been cloned? To me, that seems a pretty political operation. Given the evidence of cloning, why did they not carry out an investigation? Why did they not look into those circumstances? That is what concerns me. Other departments have said that they cannot go below £500, yet this department could go right back to 2004, with all the expense necessary to do it, and, when asked why it did not fully investigate, it said that it was too expensive. Then why did it go back to 2004? I will be answerable for whatever I have done, but it is the political motivation that worries me about these things.
It is quite right to look at expenditure and it is proper for Ministers and Members of Parliament to be accountable. However, if it is politically oriented, and if other departments are not following the same criteria as that department, and if they do not investigate the obvious problems, which they admitted probably came from cloned cards, please forgive me if I think it is political.
I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, will tell us whether she did investigate properly. I have asked the Cabinet Minister to do a proper investigation. Only if there is honesty can we have proper transparency. At the moment, it looks to be more politically motivated, and that is what concerns me. It has all the smell of hypocrisy. So let us be a bit more honest about it.